Book Reviews & Thoughts

Chain Reaction – Simone Elkeles

Synopsis

Like his brothers, Luis Fuentes is a risk taker; whether he’s scaling the Rocky Mountains or dreaming of a future as an astronaut, Luis is always looking for the next thrill.

Nikki Cruz lives her life by certain rules ― don’t trust a boy who says “I love you”, boys lie to get their own way and never date a boy from the south side of Fairfield. Then she meets Luis at his brother Alex’s wedding and suddenly she’s tempted to break all her rules.
Getting Nikki to give him a chance is Luis’s biggest challenge, until he finds himself targeted by the head of the gang that nearly destroyed his brothers’ lives. Will Luis’s feelings for Nikki be enough to stop him from entering a dark and violent world that could prove to be the ultimate risk?

Review

It’s been three years since I last read a book from this series, but that didn’t matter at all. They are all practically the same. In fact, if you have never read the other two books in this series, that’s perfectly fine — you don’t need to in order to understand this story.

I was excited to read this book because I believed that Luis was different from his brothers. He seemed to have such a promising future for himself. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why he willingly chose to get mixed up with the Latino Blood at all. He knew they were trouble, so why would he even accept a ride from Chuy? I felt that his desire to “find out what was happening with the Blood” was an incredibly weak argument.

After a certain fact was discovered, I understood Luis’s motivations for his subsequent actions. But before then, the situations that occurred seemed pretty illogical.

I wish Marco was made to be more… human. Ms Peterson and Nikki put such an emphasis on being able to “beat the odds” and the ability for anyone to go “down the right path.” But Marco appeared to have no redeeming qualities and no hope for becoming a better person.

But overall, my biggest gripe with this series is that all the stories are ultimately the same. Bad boy and good girl have some undeniable, unrelenting chemistry. They get together. The boy fights off his demons. They live happily ever after. I enjoyed Perfect Chemistry, but the story is no longer fresh.

And yet, I somehow managed to tear up in some parts. Ugh.

Related Reading

Perfect Chemistry or Rules of Attraction – Simone Elkeles (all of the stories are pretty much THE SAME)